Belvedere Infant School

Curriculum Rationale

Our school curriculum reflects our strong belief that all children have an entitlement to an exciting and inspiring curriculum that engages children.

A curriculum that gives children new experiences that broaden and deepen their understanding.

A curriculum which has been designed to specifically meet the needs of our community of learners by exploring language and vocabulary, modelling correct speech and grammar and exploring the world through speaking and listening.

At Belvedere Infant and Nursery School we believe that children learn when they are interested and fully immersed, so we create exciting themes, environments and challenging activities, giving them fantastic and memorable experiences. We allow children to take risks in a safe environment and help them learn from their mistakes. We believe strongly in building relationships between the children and their peers and model conversation and interactive play.

As children progress from EYFS into Key Stage One we build on their learning to refine their key skills in reading, writing and maths and we begin to make clearer distinctions between subject specific skills.  By the end of KS1 we aim for every child to have the knowledge, skills and understanding to take on the broader, deeper curriculum in KS2. 

We have a strong focus on oracy and building speech and language skills so that children are able to distinguish between different sounds before beginning discrete phonics teaching.  We ensure that we support our children with EAL by using digital platforms that translate and by providing pre learning packs to send home to help with key vocabulary. Reading is of high importance and alongside phonics we immerse children in books, storytelling and developing interests through reading about them. 

From the moment the children enter Belvedere Infant School we promote The Pioneer Academy’s values of “Safe, Happy, Learning.”

To ensure children become fully immersed and engaged with the learning we provide experiences by making lessons practical wherever possible. Creating themes that children can become absorbed in. The children are always ‘doing’ and ‘experiencing’ and this love of learning continues as children broaden their interest in these themes by choosing to complete further learning at home.

In KS1 we use suggested themes (units) from the International Primary Curriculum (IPC).  Some examples of these are: Time Travellers, The Magic Toymaker and The Circus is Coming to Town.

As part of this learning we begin with an entry point in which children become fully immersed in the subject of the unit, perhaps dressing up, or exploring with all senses involved, including tasting, touching and smelling. Investigating the new unit. Then comes the knowledge harvest so children can share what they already know and so teachers can build on this bank of knowledge and ensure progress within the curriculum subjects. The theme finishes with an exit point. This exit point has two main purposes. First, to help children pull together their learning of this unit and second to celebrate the learning that has taken place. The celebration can take many forms such as a performance to parents, a gallery of art work, a tea party hosted by the children.

As part of the themes we also aim to visit places outside of school that also create immersive and memorable experiences, or alternatively invite visitors to school either virtually or in person. These are particularly important to us as we also aim to improve our children’s cultural capital. We want our children to know about their local community as well as the wider world and so this is threading through our curriculum.

Extra-Curricular - The Pioneer Pupil Passport

Each child has a Pioneer Passport that offers 7 memorable experiences by the age of 7.  This provides an opportunity for our children to participate in engaging activities within school. It continues into the junior school.

At Belvedere Infants we strive for all our learners to make rapid progress from their starting points.  We use assessment for learning to see where children may have gaps in their learning so we can quickly address this through quality first teaching as well as one to one and small group interventions.  We want all children to make progress academically, emotionally, creatively, socially and physically.

We see the importance of children working collaboratively with their peers and teachers. They use discussion to develop their questioning and thinking skills. We aim for all children to become self-regulated learners. Specific lessons make certain that they are aware of how to keep themselves safe and how the school plays a role in this.

We also see the benefit of teachers collaborating and learning from each other. We provide CPD opportunities for staff that include team teaching and observing each other. We also have specialist teachers in PE and Computing who also collaborate with the other teachers to share expertise and knowledge.

Teachers are aware of the knowledge, understanding and skills needed for the next stage of the children’s education and so make sure that they are secure and fully embedded in the skills they need in their current year.

We ensure disadvantaged pupils and SEND pupils are monitored carefully and ensure every child is able to access the curriculum through differentiation and an individualised approach. We have want to ensure that all children and families have equal opportunities. Many of our families have English as an additional language and so we seek ways to support them also.

In partnership with our families we aim to promote in our children a love to learn which will last a lifetime. 

Our exciting and inspiring curriculum, based on assessment and the needs of every child ensures that our children achieve high levels of attainment in the speaking and listening, reading, writing and maths readiness to that that they have a very strong foundation for the next stage of their learning.